This weekend we were at Ooty, spent our Valentines day there visiting places and chilling out in the Ooty lake. It was a good drive from Bangalore to Ooty and then to Coonnoor in Toy train. Well, I wouldn’t say I liked the journey in toy train, but it was a one time experience. I always wanted to go in the toy train and I think I had high expectations and was hoping it would be a different sort of journey. But, unfortunately, i didn’t like the journey in toy train as it was just for an hour and the seating arrangement were cramped and hardly had enough space to spread out your legs.. Moreover, they had cut down the journey from Ooty to Mettupalayam as there were some problems in the rail or something.. and so, the journey was only till Coonnoor, which is like 18kms, an hour in Toy Train. The scenery outside was awesome, but the cramped seating arrangements and howling college students who had boarded the train made it really tiring for others.
We hit the road around 9 in the morning from Bangalore and reached Ooty around 5 in the evening. Had spent 1 or 2 hours in between having food and enjoying the scenic beauty outside. Road was really good and so was the drive. The road we took was Bangalore – Mysore – Gundulupet – Bandipur – Madumalai – Ooty. This is a long route compared to the other Kollegal – Chamarajnagara road which is uneaven and kinda muddy road and you won’t enjoy the journey if you are driving yourself. On reaching Ooty, we got into a hotel and after resting for some time, we went around checking out the places around. Later we had dinner and planned for the next days trip..
Next day, morning around 8:30, after having our breakfast, we started our drive to Doddabetta peak, which is the highest point in Ooty with gardens around the lower slopes. Doddabetta peak is at an altitude of 2,623 meters and it’s located at the Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu. This is a splendid place worth visiting and enjoying the clouds around. You can view the hilly regions of Mysore and even the Chamundi Hills of Mysore from this peak.
After spending an hour or two at the peak, we drove down the hill and stopped at a tea factory. They showed us the entire process of making the tea powder. We bought some different flavors of tea powder and at the bottom of the factory, you have a home made chocolate section where me and Dimpzy gobbled down almost all the varieties they had.
By the time they showed the whole process of team making, it was noon and the climate has changed from chilled cool climate to real burning hot and we just couldn’t take the heat. So, we started back to our hotel and slept off. Evening, we went to Ooty lake and had a great lovely time together. There was a mini train ride as well. It’s not the toy train, but a smaller version of toy train. We enjoyed it until Dimpzy banged her head while getting out of the train.
Then we got into a rowing boat and that was an awesome experience. You can enjoy the exuberant vegetation around. We just didn’t want to get back to the land.
After boating, we just went around purchasing decorative stuffs and kept filling our stomachs. Then late evening we started back to our hotel, had our dinner and slept off.
Next day, we started off from Ooty in toy train around 9:20am and reached Coonnoor at 10:30am. The journey as I mentioned was good except for the seating arrangements. The train goes real slow and you can take lots of snaps of the scenic beauty around.
There are like 2 or 3 tunnels through which this train pass and you can hear all the college boys howling and screaming… It was fun though. From Coonnoor, we took a cab back to Ooty and the same exotic vegetations can be seen at our peace. On the way back we saw the Cordite Factory (where they make bombs) which was built in 1904 and also the needle industry, but we couldn’t visit those as we were running out of time and had to get back to Bangalore. In between, we pulled over at Hill View to take some telescopic shots. It was mindblowing.
It was a great drive from coonnoor to Ooty. Around midday we started off to Bangalore and reached our flat around 8 in the evening. Overall it was a great trip and we enjoyed our Valentines day in Ooty. We would love to go once again and explore more places in Coonnoor and the surrounding areas. If I could make some time, then we will be going to KanyaKumari next month or the month after. But, prior planning never works for me. 🙂